Running from Ghosts
by satrinity
Summary: Escaping your past is easy when you're the only one aware of what happened- or, at least, that's what you'd think. Leir just wants to exist without strings attached, but when his only friend is endangered, he fights to ensure her safety- and finds something along the way that he had thought was gone forever. This story contains OCs, but will include most of the regular cast.
1. Chapter 1

**_I do not own Invader Zim, nor am I making any profit from this work of fiction. _**

_"Unit Delta- initiate escape protocol 11675-B; project has been compromised."_

_ "You can't just DO that-! I'm not leaving you."_

_ "You CAN and you WILL. You are the only one of us not bound to the programming-"_

_ "NO. I WON'T LEAVE YOU TO THE DAMN MEEKROB. Yaz, just-"_

_ "... goodbye, Leir..."_

_..._

-TARGET HAS BEEN SURPASSED-

-RESTORING FULL FUNCTIONALITY-

-EXITING HIBERNATION MODE-

-KINECTIC RESERVES AT 27%-

-RUNNING OFF OF BATTERY NOT ADVISED BENEATH 50%-

-STARTING WAKE-UP PROTOCALLS-

-LOADING ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS-

-ACTIVATING MAIN PROCESSORS-

-WELCOME BACK, LEIR-

"Yeah, yeah..." the android muttered to himself- quite literally. It bugged him that, while he was capable of managing his own operation, he had been programmed with a sub-processor to streamline his functions and keep him focused on his assigned priorities.

Though, it came in handy in situations like these...

"Wait, when did we pass the target?!"

-3.2222222222223 MICROSECONDS BEFORE AUTOMATIC DISASTER PROTOCALS WERE ACTIVATED-

"What disaster?" Leir straightened, his dual antennae raising slightly as he glared at the screen, scanning for anything that may have set off his sensors unintentionally.

-CURRENT TRAJECTORY WILL LEAD THE SHIP INTO THE STAR AT THE GRAVITATIONAL CENTER OF THIS SOLAR SYSTEM-

-DESTRUCTION IMMINENT UNLESS EVACUATION PROTOCOLS ARE FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY-

"What was- a METEOR? Really? We survived being clipped by a class two meteor? Wow, I'm a heavy sleeper."

-AGREED-

"Shut up. So, was I right? Is there a habitable planet out here after all?"

-YOU DO NOT TECHNICALLY NEED A 'HABITABLE' ONE, BUT YES THE THIRD PLANET FROM THIS SYSTEM'S SUN HAS ALL NECESSARY COMPONENTS-

If he possessed actual eyes, Leir would have rolled them. As it was, he lowered his optic shutters slightly into a more annoyed expression. "If I'm going to be on the run, I might as well hide out somewhere interesting. Now, without further ado..."

With a forceful kick, Leir knocked the doorway to his small (stolen) craft out into space. The small bot briefly stopped to check his surroundings, the light from the sun glinting off his silver exterior as he did so, then kicked off of the side of the ship to float out into the vast expanse, leaving the ship to continue it's path. It wasn't like he could have saved it- even if the collision with the meteor hadn't damaged some of the nav systems, it had run out of fuel ages ago. He was better off without it.

At least, that's what he told himself, as the gravitational pull of the blue and green planet took hold, and he plummeted into the atmosphere...

...

-ACCESSING BACKUP FILES-

-(ERROR: FILE NOT FOUND)-

-ATTEMPTING MANUAL REBOOT-

-(ERROR: STARTUP FILE 473567218 NOT FOUND)-

-SSSENDING ALL AVAILABLE BACKUPS TO MAIN CPU-

-INTEG-GRATING PROGRAMS INTO CORRUPT SYSTEM-

-MAIN SYSTEM INTEGRITY 79%-

-MANUAL RRREPAIR NNNEEDED-

-ERROR: SYSTEM MALFUNCTION-

-FAILSAFE CODE 862-A ENACTED-

-DELETING EXCESSSSS PROGRAMMING TO PRESERVE CORE AI-

-EXTENDED HIBERNATION W-WILL ENACT UPON COMPLETION-

-GOOD...BYE...LEIR-

...

It had come from the sky, as cliché as that may sound. Everyone in the rural farming community had been worked up over it for the last bit, and doctor Allen Rhyse was, quite frankly, of the same mind.

He was a kid at heart, and wished that the stories of a strange object descending from the heavens could be true- he'd always be a believer in extraterrestrials and the like, but cold hard fact stood in the way of this one: The object had not gently 'descended', it had plummeted through the atmosphere at an alarming rate and collided with enough force to cause a relatively small, but still VERY noticeable, crater in the middle of a farm not too far out from his current location.

He had dropped work on the town's telescope in a research observatory there, along with nearly every astronomer in the facility, when the call had come through. Fire and rescue was being dispatched- not to clean up casualties, but to simply contain the flames that risked spreading to the wide, empty field of wheat that it had landed in. They were soon to follow as the sirens atop the police escort that had been afforded to them rang out in the fading twilight.

The field itself looked to be a bit worse for wear, but not horribly mangled, like it could have been. Three separate impact craters could be seen; what was curious here was the angle. From the data that he gathered, Rhyse could surmise that the object had somehow decelerated in mid-fall and hit at an angle that had caused it to _skip_ across the Earth's surface. The strangest part, though, was not the behavior of the object...

... but the _lack of one._

They combed the area for hours, to no avail. Whatever had fallen was gone. The astrophysicist himself had come to the personal conclusion that one of these nut jobs out here had located and taken it. With a heavy heart and a great sigh, he bade his colleagues farewell and climbed back into his two-door vehicle to head back to his home three states away- after picking up his daughter from her mother's house, of course.

The small lump laying dormant in the back seat went unnoticed, as did the twitching of a silver, robotic hand as the owner of said hand tried- and failed- to save his last friend.

...

"_Daddy, what's this thing...?"_

_ "Oh, that's... hrmm. Actually, I'm not sure. Where did this come from?"_

_ "It looks like one of those robot toys that they made in Japan. Wait, is it?!"_

_ "No, sweetheart, I don't think so. It's obviously not ours, should-"_

_ "Can I try to fix it so that when we find whoever owns it we can give them a not broken toy...?"_

_ "I don't know, Wendy..."_

_ "Daaaddyyyy-"_

_ "Oh, fine. Just let me check through it to make sure that it isn't dangerous."_

_ "It looks like a toy, daddy. What could be dangerous about a toy?"_

_ "Well, it could be full of drugs, or rigged with explosives, or- what am I doing, you're eight years old. You don't need to worry about that stuff, sweetheart. Just let me do some stuff first, then you can have at it."_

_ "You're the best, daddy~"_

_ "Yeah, yeah... you have math to do; go finish those equations. Beginner's quadratics won't learn itself."_

_ "Aww... okay..."_

_ ..._

Rhyse couldn't tell where the thing had come from, but it definitely wasn't a mere toy.

"What the hell were you doing in my car-?"

The little robot stared back at him with blank red optics, not a spark of light to be seen. He had checked over the thing three times now, without any luck as far as finding out what the story was with it.

He hadn't found anything dangerous, nor had he located any bugs or the like- not that anyone would want to bug his house or car. He was well known in his field, but he wasn't _Professor Membrane_ famous. Rhyse really had no cause to worry, but the circumstances were strange, at best.

This thing seemed for all the world like some sort of toy. An advanced one, made up of heavy metallic alloys, but still nothing that could be used to harm his daughter. Strangely, it seemed to have a thicker outer layer to it, as well as a solid body, if his examinations were anything to go by. It would not open for him- if it even could- but after his scrutinization, he decided that it was time.

Once again, he cringed at the thought of the situation- his inability to say no to his daughter was a bit of a problem. If she wasn't such a good kid, she may have turned into a spoiled brat. He wasn't going to deny it- it was true what people said about kids with divorcing parents. Well, influential divorcing parents. Between Rhyse and his now ex-wife, little Wendy got pretty much whatever she wanted.

Which, in this case, was a strange robot... thing... that had randomly showed up in the back seat of his car two days ago.

What the hell was he doing...

...

"Ooh, I _love_ it!"

Yes, it was worth the worry.

Rhyse watched as his daughter's face lit up, her light blue eyes glimmering with fascination as she examined her new 'toy'. This made it worth the trouble: seeing her so happy, not only at the fact that he had given her something, but at the prospect of a new project. The 'bot had taken quite a bit of damage somehow- scorch marks coated most of its small form, and many parts were dislocated in a way that was obviously not intended by whomever made it.

His daughter had shown many signs of wanting to follow in her father's footsteps, asking for everything from telescopes to tool kits to improve upon said scopes. The only difference was that she had also wanted a computer- and then had promptly been grounded from it for hacking into the school's systems to schedule nothing but her favorite classes for the next few weeks after.

His ex-wife disapproved and wanted her to go into accounting like her, for the money, of course.

Naturally, this meant that he had upgraded her computer again and bought her more star charts.

As the eight-year-old disappeared into her room, Rhyse couldn't help but feel at least a bit accomplished. He returned to his office to complete the new designs for his presentation later that week.

**A/N: **I'm baaaack~

This is the first time that I've posted a fic for this fandom, and I hope you guys enjoy it. Be sure to let me know what you think about it with a review, and don't be afraid to give me criticism- sometimes I really need it!

I'll try to keep up with a decent updating schedule, though it may be a three or four times a month type of thing, depending on whether work is kind to me.

Thanks for reading!

-Satrinity-


	2. Chapter 2

_Tink... tink tink..._

_Tinktinktink __**CLANG**_

"Whoops..."

Wynn dropped the small tack hammer and hastily examined the length of metallic tubing that she had been tinkering with, and breathed a sigh of relief as she found no dents.

Well, no _new_ dents.

She huffed in frustration, and resumed her tapping on the edges of the tubing. The pieces had become quite frayed and would not easily retract into the robot's body, leaving it with an abnormally long arm with a small, clawed hand hanging limp from the end. She had been at work on this particular part all day long, and she had actually made a little headway- the arm retracted a bit more with every dent that she was able to smooth, and was nearly back to what seemed to be its normal length.

This had been one of the less frustrating tasks that she had dealt with lately as far as her ongoing restoration project went. While she had made a ton of headway as far as overall body repairs went and rewiring, it had still been over a year since she had received the small robot from her father and it had not shown even a spark of activity.

It had been a bit perplexing at first; no manufacturing marks, which she was sure her father had noted as well, aside from a strange symbol that looked like... well, like a very pointy smiley face, which she had found once she had finally managed to pry open the compartment on the small 'bot's chest. No fuel lines or batteries of any kind. Nothing to activate it or input any commands.

The only thing that she had found other than wires within its chest was a small looped track-like piece embedded into the interior of its back, warped by heat and jarred by whatever impact this thing had suffered.

She had spent three whole months on that piece alone, and had reinstalled the piece with glee- only to have it do nothing as well.

This had been the single most difficult undertaking of her life. All nine years of it.

Wynn placed the tack hammer- gently this time, rather than dropping it- onto her small workbench and straightened, stretching her back a bit. She had been hunched over for hours trying to fix the robot's arm, which did not feel to good after a while. She grinned and pulled on the arm slightly, listening to the small _click_ as it caught some unseen mechanism inside of the shoulder and neatly zipped back in, leaving both arms at the same length at last.

She pumped her fist into the air in victory, glad to finally have the worst of the outer repairs done; unfortunately, this also caused her to clip the small robot and knock him over. Wynn sucked in a sharp breath and righted it, checking for any further damage as she went. She sat back and rubbed her eyes, glad to have found nothing new...

... until a small object caught her eye.

It was tiny, about the size of a marble. In fact, it _looked_ like a marble, though it had a hairline crack branching from its center. The piece was a fiery shade of red, made of some sort of material that resembled glass but had a texture slightly reminiscent of plastic. She searched all around for its source, but she could find nothing- until she noticed something in its center. Though it was barely discernible, she could clearly make out a familiar symbol.

She had noticed it every time she opened up the robot's chest cavity.

What could a piece like this be for? She had not noticed anything that it would fit into.

... wait.

Wynn froze as the gears in her brain ground to a halt, then spun into overdrive as an idea seized her. She scrambled up from her seat and laid the robot out on the table, trying to get a better vantage. She reached for the chest plate, but stopped short as she remembered her camera. Wynn had taken to recording her work on the robot whenever she started or finished any major repairs, in case she needed to refer to what she had learned about it at a later time. This was definitely major, or at least had the capacity to be, so out came the simple camcorder and its tripod stand; she set it onto the other end of the workbench and angled it onto the robot, then turned it on.

"May eighth, day three hundred and seventy-four of my work on the unknown robot specimen. Nearly all outer repairs completed to my knowledge. Still no sign of a replacement for the shattered quasi-LED's in its eyes- er, optics. New piece jostled loose and discovered. Presumably lodged within the chest until a... small amount of force knocked it out." At this, she held the marble up to the camera. "Spherical piece, appears to be glass or similar material. Small crack in center as well as the unknown emblem printed in the center. I am working on a hunch- bare with me for a moment."

She went silent as she nudged the door to the chest open a little further. She had not allowed it to fully close since finally getting it open, for fear that it would re-seal itself. Once she had better access, Wynn located the small track and felt around its edges until she came across what she had thought were stress fractures initially, but had found to be machine tooled grooves that allowed the track to flex slightly and lock into place when a tab below that was flicked to the side. She opened this little port and, with shaking fingers, popped the marble in. She quickly closed and locked the panel and withdrew her hand after giving the marble a slight nudge.

With baited breath, Wynn watched it rock back and forth in the track, each pass making a small scratching noise and taking it further and further... until it stopped. Not 'rolled to a stop'- just came to a dead stop.

Wynn frowned and reached back in, nudging it once more- it didn't even budge.

Her eyes narrowed and she reached for a screw driver- but stopped as a knock sounded at her door.

"Wendy? Honey, it's three o'clock. Are you packed?"

Her eyes widened as she glanced to her bedside clock- it was, indeed, three, and her mother would be at her house to pick her up in less than a half hour.

"Y-yeah, all packed! I'll be down in a minute," she called back to her father as she scrambled to turn off and put away her camera and finish filling her half packed bag, leaving the robot on the table. She spared him one final glance before flicking off the overhead light and darting out the door, leaving the small form in darkness.

...

_Scritch... scritch... scritchscritch... scritchscritchscritch..._

_..._

The sound broke the silence of the room, repeating at faster intervals until it faded into a quiet whir, and a small spark of red light lit the gloom.

-_Initializing-_

* * *

**A/N:** So life has a tendency to hit one like a semi truck as soon as one is unprepared. It's hard to work a full time job and still find time to write- especially when you lose your rough drafts. I am not happy with this chapter, but seeing as how I could not find my original copy OR my notes, I made due.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this rather short chapter, which is a bit of a teaser, to be honest- I plan on keeping the rest of this story (which I WILL FINISH) to chapters longer than this.

R&amp;R, and feel free to criticize- I need my butt verbally kicked every now and then, and I'm happy to let you do it!


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